


Que sera.

by soennavind



Series: Chronicle of a Life Untold [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, M/M, and steve has an asthma attack, where they're old but not quite grey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:52:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11056488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soennavind/pseuds/soennavind
Summary: They would be alright.





	Que sera.

He first noticed it when he was doing the washing up.

A slight tremor ran through the air, and had been for last 20 minutes or so. He hadn’t given it any thought, thinking Steve had just left one of the windows in the living room, and that a breeze was slipping in.

But then the tremor took on the character of a rasp, and Bucky realised with abject terror that the sound was coming from Steve. 

Panic like no other seized him and he dropped the plate he was cleaning. It smashed to pieces against the terracotta tiles as he flew, heart in his throat, from the kitchen to the living room where he’d last seen Steve fixing up one of their bookshelves.

Steve was sat in the couch, back to the door and arms curled protectively around his chest, which was heaving steadily but heavily. Bucky rushed to Steve’s side—had someone attacked him—?  
“Stevie, Steve, what’s wrong?” Steve’s eyes were squeezed shut and his face was contorted in concentration. His hair was falling out of shape, and his knuckles white with how hard he was clutching at his chest. His lips were turning blue; Bucky simply didn’t know what to do, so he gripped Steve by the temples, and willed him to be okay. His eyes darted about his body trying to see what was wrong. There was no blood—perhaps it was poison?

“Call—call the do—doctor. Hurry—” Bucky was about to press for more when he had the thought ‘Steve’s lungs are being crushed.’ He was suddenly thrown back 30 years, and simultaneous incomprehension and understanding swept through him; Steve was having an asthma attack. 

He raced back to the kitchen where he’d left his phone, adrenaline hot in his veins. As he dialled the number of their private doctor, he hit himself on the thigh with his metal arm. He gave himself a blistering berating: how many times in his goddamn life had he needed to bring Steve down from an asthma attack? How in the seven holy hells had he not realised—?

“Hello, this is Doctor Marren speaking.” The answering voice was calm, but Bucky could hear Steve starting to cough and hack and choke in the other room.

“Steve’s having an acute asthma attack—help—now,” Bucky’s voice was raised, and he hoped desperately the good doctor could hear how serious the situation was. Captain America had the public image of an unconquerable and totally untouchable figure of authority, but asthma attacks were asthma attacks, and contrary to popular belief, he was only human. Bucky didn’t have the mental capacity to start considering why he was having an attack at all. That was beside the point, for now.

There was a sharp intake on the other end of the phone, but the voice was unerringly steady.

“Okay, James, I trust you know how to treat him until I get there. Stay calm. Keep him calm. You just hold on, I’ll be there in 7 minutes.”

 

 

Those were 7 long minutes. Steve went from coughing to being absolutely silent by the end of it, his chest constricting. If Bucky hadn’t been such a seasoned expert at coaxing Steve through an attack, he wouldn’t have been able to keep either himself or Steve calm. Bucky sat beside him, stroking his hand up and down Steve’s strong back while they waited for Dr. Marren, and trying his absolute damnedest to not let his self-loathing show in the way he talked to Steve. 

“You’re doing fine, Stevie, you’re doing great.”  
“Breathe, baby, breathe. Slow and good now.”  
“Sit straight, just like that. Back straight, here.”  
“Keep breathing. Keep breathing. Keep breathing.”  
“I’m right here. Hold on, Stevie.”

Steve for his part held together like a champ, in Bucky’s very humble opinion. Neither of them were used to this anymore. They had been, once upon time, but it was so far in the past that sitting there together like that, like they used to, felt dully like deja vu.

Steve passed out just a few seconds before Dr. Marren rang the doorbell. Bucky opened it in a flash, and was forever grateful to see her carrying some funny-looking apparatus and a briefcase of medicine.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, Bucky thought.

Dr. Marren was cool, collected, and absolutely unshaken by the state in which she found America’s favourite poster boy. She slid a translucent mask connected to a little machine over his mouth and nose, and prepped an IV fluid bag. A blue light on the machine flicked on, and it started to make a low humming sound. Bucky watched Steve’s face intently, and after a moment of no change in either facial expression or skin colour, he put his ear to Steve’s chest:

Quiet and almost hesitant, but there all the same, was Steve’s heartbeat. He could hear—thank God—the faintest sound of air rattling against his airways. Bucky sighed deeply and with relief at the sounds, which were worth infinitely more than their weight in gold.

Within 15 minutes, his chest rose visibly again and the rosy colour of his lips returned. Dr. Marren, after the fact, seemed hesitant to ask any questions, beside the medical sort. She had been assigned to them by Natasha who had assured them that she was of the most confidential and professional kind. She worked as a public doctor in the town nearest to them, but her primary mission was to act as their private doctor should anything happen. Her mission detail included treatment of third degree burns, deep cuts, dismemberment, bullet wounds, poison, and other various types of assassination-attempt wounds. Her mission detail did not include, however, asthma attacks. Bucky felt that she probably deserved some explanation, but, quite honestly, he knew as little as she did as to why this happened. 

“Has this happened before?”

“Not for a very long time—he had asthma before the serum. We was plenty used to this back then,” Bucky said, reminiscing. He held Steve’s hard-knuckled soft hand as he slept. She eyed him warily, and after a moment’s pause continued her questioning.

“What other conditions did he have? Before the serum, I mean.”

“Gosh, doc—many. Real bad eyesight, pretty much deaf in his left ear, asthma as you know, scoliosis—“ Bucky was about to list more when he noted the odd voice in which she had asked him.

“Why you asking?”

“Well, it’s been 35 years since the serum was administered to him. Almost 95 in real time. It could be that it’s starting to…” she hesitated, “That it’s starting to wear off.”

Bucky frowned. If it was wearing off for Steve, then shouldn’t it be starting to as well for him?

“I don’t know, James. It’s only a possibility. I don’t know what else could explain this.”

Marren left after 2 hours with the express instruction to make sure Steve rest it out. The serum would likely speed up the recovery, but then neither of them knew by how much. 

She gave him an inhaler and a bottle of emergency medicine, should an attack of this kind happen again.

Steve didn’t wake up until well after the sun had set, presumably because the smell of Bucky’s cooking, which got his attention from beyond sleep-land. He shuffled into the kitchen, blanket around his shoulders, with a weak “Hey.”

Bucky turned only slightly to look at him—he wanted to seem calm, but the relief he felt very nearly overwhelmed him.

“Hiya, sweetheart. How you feeling?”

“Better. Much better,” Steve’s voice was wrecked around the edges, and Bucky smiled to himself. This was the first time Steve had come out the other end of an asthma attack standing within the day. Somewhere at the back of his mind he knew Steve would not have survived an attack this bad when they were young. He quashed the thought and continued stirring the onions.

“Dr. Marren left you some pills and an inhaler. I put them in the bathroom, under the sink,” he chattered. Steve looked unhappy as he moved closer.

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh? What for?”

“Well, I…I’ve been feeling a little off, as of late. And I wasn’t sure how to tell you. I wasn’t even sure whether or not I was imagining it.” Steve rubbed his hand over his neck; a sign that he was remorseful. Bucky wasn’t angry, unlike Steve seemed to have expected.

“A little off? What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t really know, Buck. A little weaker maybe. The other day, for just a second, I couldn’t read my book—couldn’t see the words,” he said as he leaned against the counter. There was a small crack in the terracotta that caught his attention. That hadn’t been there this morning.

“Maybe you’re just getting old, sweetheart. We’re not young anymore, that’s for sure,” Bucky laughed as he pulled one of the sauces he’d made earlier out of the fridge.

“Buck, I think that’s just the point. I think the serum is wearing off.”

Bucky froze. Sauce in hand, he paused mid-step. He turned to look at Steve in full. His eyes were deadly serious and his face was pulled taught with worry.

“You mean it?” Bucky asked quietly. Steve nodded in the affirmative. “How long have you known?” Steve shrugged in a small way, only barely raising and lowering his shoulders.

“A month, maybe. The signs were small, I didn’t think they amounted to much.” He looked away again, breaking eye contact. Bucky felt concern, apprehension, and fear swirl within him for a moment, but looking at Steve now and thinking about the fear in his face earlier when his breath was stolen from him, tranquility stole over Bucky.

“Que sera, sera,” he said, non-sequitur.

“What?” Steve quirked up, a stupid look on his face. Bucky sniggered.

“Que sera, sera, Stevie. We’ll be fine.”

Steve’s face cracked up and he snorted. Bucky poured the sauce into a pot. They would be fine. He believed that.

 

 

Bucky woke with a start that same night. He’d been dreaming of a big albino snake squeezing him—a very unusual and relatively light nightmare for him—when he was pulled from sleep by a genuine inability to breathe. He panicked for a second, his systems instantly rewiring to its Soldier circuits, and he was about to put the attacker in a hold when his sense of smell told him that the thing squeezing him was no one else but Steve.

God give me rest, he thought sardonically. Dealing with bad surprises twice in a day was twice more than they’d had to deal with collectively for the past year.

“Steve, wake up,” he whispered gently. Steve’s arms tightened like vices. Bucky tried again. “Stevie, wake up, it’s only a dream.”

“Christ almighty, Buck, it hurts.” Bucky, hand on his heart, almost jumped out of his skin. He’d thought the arm-lock was a result of a nightmare and was momentarily derailed by how taken aback he was. Then he processed what Steve had said.

“What? What does? What hurts?”

“My skin’s on fire—knock me out, Buck. I mean it, just put me to sleep—“ he just managed to finish before letting out a choked scream of pain. 

“What the fuck? What the fuck is going on, Steve?”

Steve couldn't answer, grinding his teeth to contain the scream.

“Don’t move. I’ll get you some water.” Bucky had to use his bionic arm to pull off Steve’s arms and fingers, and for the second time today ran to get Steve help. He first got him a large glass of cold water, then called Marren from the bathroom. It rang only for a short while before she picked up.

“Yes, hello, Dr. Marren speaking—“

“How much do you know about the serum?” A pregnant pause unfolded after those words. She sighed over the phone.

“I thought so. How is he?”

“In a lot of pain, doc. What—what am I to do, what do I—help us.” Bucky felt his body weaken with each passing second. Was Steve dying?

“I talked to Stark’s doctors after I left you two. Would you like to hear the good news or the bad news first?” Bucky’s gut dropped. His vision slid askew.

“Bad news.”

“His body is reverting to how it was before the serum. He can’t be Captain America after this even if he wants to.” Bucky felt strangely disembodied, like his feet were no longer attached to his legs, and his head no longer attached to his shoulders. He was floating in a little bubble of self, there in the total blackness.

“And the good news?”

“He’ll live. He’s going to be alright. Painkillers aren’t going to help however, because his metabolism will be one of the last serum alterations to go. We’re not sure how long the reversion will take, but be prepared for this taking up the rest of your night.” Bucky nodded into the darkness. He hummed to show his understanding.

“Thank you, Dr. Marren. Sorry for waking you.”

“Don’t worry. That’s what I’m here for. Keep him warm and hydrated; this is going to be hellish for both of you. Take of yourself, and don’t give in,” she spoke in short, direct sentences and with emphasis. She’d evidently caught on to Bucky’s shock. He hung up after that, and returned slowly to their bedroom where Steve was still struggling.

Bucky felt confused and disoriented. What was he supposed to feel now? How was he supposed to take this…?

“Bucky…” Steve muttered painfully. In motion before his mind could catch up, Bucky had crossed the bedroom floor and put a hand on Steve’s arm. It was bright hot and sticky with sweat.

“You’re going to be fine. You’re safe. I’m right here,” he reassured forcefully, bringing his body closer to Steve’s. Steve curled towards the sound of Bucky’s voice; his eyes were unseeing. He seemed somewhat placated though, and his brow unwrinkled the tiniest bit. 

“It’s only for tonight, Stevie, you’ll be fine by morning. Just wait for the sun. Wait for the sun.”

Together, they fought to see the sunlight of the morning.

 

 

Finally, finally, after hours of sweating and body-wide “fire”, as Steve called it, the sun’s first rays of hazy light peeked over the ocean horizon. Bucky watched with dry eyes as the shards of light turned the clouds tangerine orange and the water into wine. Steve was lying on the bed flat on his back, his hand in Bucky’s hair and his eyes drilling into the ceiling. 

They weren’t speaking. Bucky was too tired to even think of opening his mouth, and Steve was consumed by some black thought.

“Stevie?”

“…Yeah?”

“Can we sleep now? I need my beauty sleep,” Bucky tried to crack a joke, but it fell on deaf ears—perhaps literally. Steve nodded without blinking. Exhausted, they fell asleep within only a minute or two.

When Bucky woke, the bed was empty. He looked at the clock and groaned, disappointed. He’d wanted to go for a drive to Cape May today, see the boardwalk. He yawned deeply, then rose from their bed.

He paced downstairs in only boxers, and looked around for his husband.

He found him on the porch, staring out to sea.

Bucky could hardly believe his eyes.

Upon seeing Steve, he was violently wrenched back to a different century, to a different life, and it absolutely knocked the breath out of him. He fell in love with Steve for the hundredth time all over again.

Because Steve was beautiful. And so very, very sad.

Bucky had to support himself against the doorframe as he observed him from behind.

He was only wearing a pair of track suit trousers that were far too big for him, which gave Bucky the chance to notice that his skin had taken on its previous imperfect, human glow. Steve’s ribs were once again visible under his skin, but it was only because of how he was curled around himself—not because he was starving.

The knobs in his spine were a little wonky, and he clearly hadn’t noticed Bucky’s presence yet, courtesy of his deaf ear.

Bucky felt like a young man.

“Stevie—!” he exclaimed, breaking the peaceful air. Steve hardly reacted at all, other than curling tighter around himself. 

“Morning, Barnes,” he muttered. Bucky put both hands on Steve’s back, feeling the bones and soft skin under his fingers, as well as the distinct absence of muscles. Marren had told him what would happen, but that made him no less prepared for the actuality of it.

“Morning, Rogers. Have I ever told you I love you?” Bucky blurted out. His head was a mess, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that he was in love. Steve whipped around to snap something at Bucky, but the innocent genuineness must have been obvious on Bucky’s face because he stopped.

“Yeah, maybe a couple times,” he said tartly. Bucky knew this: it was a defence mechanism. It was his job to break through it.

“Will you marry me again?”

“Huh? What for?” Steve sounded sceptical.

“See, Stevie, I feel like a new man. The old James Barnes is dead. New marriage for a new man, you know,” Bucky was smiling with his entire soul. Steve was not.

In fact, Steve elected to ignore Bucky’s comment.

“I need a new wardrobe…” he said, almost to himself, like Bucky wasn’t there. The sweatpants were pooling about his feet, and he’d tied a triple knot with the strings.

Bucky put a hand under Steve’s chin and pulled gently. Steve was too out-of-mind to resist the movement. Bucky looked into his eyes briefly before placing his lips on Steve’s rosy, plump ones. Steve made an annoyed sound before sighing with his whole body and relaxing into Bucky’s embrace. It was a charged kiss, not at all chaste, and Bucky placed an admiring hand against Steve’s stomach.

“Marry me.” This time, Steve responded more lightly.

“I already did, jerk.” Bucky laughed before scooping Steve up in his arms. Again, Steve made an annoyed sound at first, but evidently Bucky’s joy was contagious; Steve soon joined in, and was breathless with laughter within a minute. They didn’t come down from that high for a while, and they sat on the porch for a good hour as Bucky re-explored the landscapes of Steve’s body with both his eyes and his hands.

Jesus Christ, he’d forgotten how much he loved this Steve too. Obviously he’d love Steve come hell or high water, but seeing Steve like this, like he once had been, he realised how much he truly meant that. 

Steve was angelic; saintly. Of course, with his temperament he was a Hebrew angel, not a Christian one—but that made his beauty all the more brutal. Steve was brutally beautiful, with his pale blond hair and knobby body.

Steve didn’t seem to agree.

And Bucky knew the serum had never solved his inferiority complex. He’d always known that changing the surface couldn’t change the currents flowing below, but seeing it so clearly on display hurt him. It was hard seeing Steve so clearly despise his God-given body, and see him visibly cringe at their new (or rather their old) height difference and at his own reflection.

It wasn’t that Steve was vain. It was just that he once again felt powerless, hopeless; at mercy to others, which included Bucky. 

It took a week of skirting reflections and standing in Bucky’s space that Bucky finally decided to break this into the open. 

“Sweetheart, don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’m not.” Steve’s response was immediate, and therefore a lie.

“Don’t try that with me. Talk to me.”

“I’m not—“ Steve began but all the air seemed to leave him in a big swoosh. “God, I never thought, I never—thought I’d be like this ever again. I hate this, feeling so….small.” Bucky couldn’t help but think to himself that the only small thing about Steve Rogers was the tone of his voice as he said that.

“And if I told you I’ve never seen a more beautiful man in my life, what would you do?”

“I wouldn’t do anything because you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. Look at me, could these eyes lie to you?” Steve pursed his mouth and glared at him.

“Well, no,” he admitted. Bucky was incapable of lying to Steve; the truth always ended up spilling out of him, whether he desired it or not. Steve had that particular quality about him where one felt the compulsion to speak only the truth and nothing but the truth around him. And anyways, Steve knew Bucky couldn’t lie to him. They were beyond that.

Bucky snuggled into the large pillows of the couch.

“You know how old I was when I knew I was in love with you.” It was a statement, they’d already had that conversation.

“You was 13.”

“That’s right. And I been in love with you every day of my life since then, even when I didn’t know it.” Steve flinched inadvertently; he would probably never get used to Bucky being at ease with himself and his past. “So why’s it such a shock that I love this Steven Rogers as much as I love the other one when I done seen it all?” 

Steve was speechless. His mouth opened and closed twice, then thrice. He rubbed his arms as he considered it.

“Erskine saw you, and he liked what he saw. And that, sweetheart, is a done and done fact. Ain’t nothing you can do or say to make that not true. As did Peggy. She fell in love with you before you got big too. You gonna tell me that Peggy an’ Erskine don’t know a gem when they see one?”

Steve was clearly fighting to find a way to refute that, but he came up short.

“But—“

“No, sir, no ‘buts’ about it. Don’t do that to yourself. Trust us when we tell you you’re a good man. Sarah didn’t raise a bad son,” Bucky knew these were tough blows, and that Steve would be repelled by it. At the same time however, he also wanted to see Steve look comfortable again. Bucky couldn’t be comfortable until Steve was comfortable again.

“Look at it from my point of view, or Peggy’s or Erskine’s. What are you?”

“A skinny little firecracker.”

“Absolutely goddamn right you are. But what makes us actually like you?”

“I’m—“ and finally, Bucky sees the cogs start to turn.

“I’m…stubborn.”

“Mhmm.”

“And single-minded.”

“Yep.”

“And I always know what’s right. Or at least I think I do,” he murmurs wondrously.

“There ain’t no sexier thing than conviction, sweetheart. You’re right on the money. And you know what, it’s not that you know what’s right and what’s wrong that makes us like you; it’s that you got the spitfire to actually do something about it. You are the noblest busybody we ever done saw.” Bucky then grins, shit-faced, and pulls Steve to him to give him a dirty kiss.

Steve slaps him on the arm, but the tension has been permanently broken. There’s wonder in his eyes. Awe, even.

“Stop that, we’re 60 years old. You got no business acting like an adolescent,” Steve chastises.

“Youth is in the mind, Stevie. You make me young.” Bucky punctuated the statement by pinching Steve’s bum. Steve yelped and whacked away Bucky’s nasty hands.

“Fucking bloodhound.”

“You know me.”

Steve paused.

“And you mean all that?” Steve looked at him through thick lowered lashes. Bucky didn’t even have to think about it when he replied.

“Every word of it.”

And Steve smiled, before getting up to retrieve a permanent marker. He told Bucky to close his eyes, which he did.

When he opened them, Steve had written in as many languages as he could speak, “What will be, will be” on his bionic arm. It was a hopeful thank you.

Que sera, sera  
Was sein wird, wird sein  
Lo que sea será, será  
What will be, will be.

They would be alright.


End file.
